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Well, it's the last day for Electronic Toys and I have reached the end of what I can achieve by this deadline. The majority of the individual sub-systems are more-or-less working and I have connected them together as best I can, see video below.
Not quite the fully integrated and interactive electronic game I first started out to create but it is well on the way to being something acceptable. Below is a video showing the view from inside the VR headset.
As well as the camera being connected to the VR headset to make up the AR headset, I did plan for the PixyCam to be capable of being driven around in the environment. Regretfully this did not prove to be achievable within the timescale (and my rather slow work-rate) but I did implement a small mobile robot capable of carrying the PixyCam around, see below. This was based on a previous Project14 competition but which I had dropped on the floor some time ago and two of the continuous rotation servo motors used to move the chassis along, no longer worked. So I disabled those and removed their tyres so that the wheels should just slide along. This did work but there was some additional problem with getting started and the programme seemed to disappear off into the digital wilderness at the beginning and only randomly returned and started working.
As can be seen at the end of this video, due to the difference between moving forwards and then backwards, caused by the motors not working properly, the mobile robot chassis, yet again, falls to the floor. I think it is still working. Finally, put it all together and this is what you get.
It doesn't quite implement the game play I wanted as I originally wanted to control the direction of the laser spot using the AR headset, so that it could be moved onto the identified targets. Then 'firing' would check if the laser spot was on target and points added for accuracy, with points deducted for hitting 'friendly' figures. Then by using a joystick or similar, the mobile robot carrying the PixyCam could be driven around an environment searching for figures to fire at. I estimate that I was about 90% of the way towards achieving this, with the majority of the sub-systems working.
Regretfully, the failure of my 3D printer meant I could only implement one axis of movement in the PixyCam, nor was I able to fix the laser pointer to the camera. Plus, the sensor unit for the AR headset was not packaged nicely or securely and so wobbled about a fair bit, upsetting the stability of camera movements. I think there was also some problem with the calibration of the rotation sensor as well, but I never did work out what that was. I also broke more parts than I have ever broken before - not a record I wanted to achieve. Leaving the production of the mobile robot chassis until the end was perhaps also a mistake, but it did work - mostly.
This has been a really fun build for me, if frustrating at times, and I have learnt a great deal. I think I will have a bit of a break from Project14 for at least a few days. If the animatronics topic gets chosen for Oct'19 I might have a go at that as I have had an interesting idea for it.
Dubbie
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